Schizophrenia – Genetics – Tuesday 23rd January 2024
Schizophrenia – Genetics – Tuesday 23rd January 2024
I saw an interesting article titled ‘The Psychiatric Yeti’ and wanted to express my opinion on why I feel certain it is genetic.
Firstly, there are disorders that are going to have a specific gene involved with it. And those disorders that do not. The psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and ADHD are impactful certainly, but at the genetic level the activity is small and unrecognisable at this time.
Those psychiatric disorders which are growing statistically ie., where you have the disorders that remain within a certain percentage of the population and those that are growing, like autism for example. It’s correct that many people with the above disorders would not be having children for fear they would pass the disorder on and whether they could manage parenthood would also probably be in mind. Case by case as to what each person would decide about that. If they were having children though, there would be many familial cases occurring in my view, but there are other factors involved so a person with schizophrenia for instance could have a child without passing the condition on but as well, they could, and so the risk would exist unfortunately.
But the reason we see more cases occurring isn’t due to genetic inheritance, it’s because the new cases are occurring for the same reason the older cases occurred.
We can have a specific problem in a gene, we can also have a problem because our genetics themselves have a problem.
And a number of the disorders unfortunately fall into the latter category (in my opinion).
And so in that group we should expect to see the statistic growing and not static.
I continue to hope that, in spite of my lack of a degree etcetera, that some scientists overseas would be comfortable to make an allowance for this and my disability and welcome my participation. (Rett Syndrome and the disorders I’ve mentioned above have been my focus for many years, but I feel that I could be of assistance in other developmental conditions and syndromes also).
Essentially, the problem we have when our genetics encounter certain problems, the genetic response to those issues is similar for us and as a consequence, most commonly becomes evident in early childhood sadly.
Fiona MacLeod (C)
